[B-Greek] YALLW and ADW

Albert Pietersma albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Fri Sep 19 13:40:19 EDT 2003


The following note I wrote some time ago in a commentary on Ps 3.1 may 
be of some interest to the present discussion re YALLW and ADW:
Yalmos. As is clear both from its formation and its use in Classical 
Greek sources, this word referred initially to the activity of making 
music (or any comparable sound) rather than to a piece of music in set 
form. That it continued to have this sense in later literature is clear 
from such passages as Am 5.23, which speaks of the "psalming" of  
instruments (see below). Also of interest is that Josephus consistently 
so uses it (Ant. 6.214; 7.80; 9.35; 12.323), and Philo never uses it at 
all, preferring the common Greek u(mnos instead. A more concrete 
meaning ("psalm") is, however, attested and could therefore be what G 
intended in the Psalter (cf. e.g. Esa 66.20; Zach 6.14 where it appears 
without warrant in MT; Ps 151.1). In any case, there is little doubt 
that it developed this meaning based on its appearance in the Greek 
Psalter. As is clear from its cognates, ya/llw "to pluck"  and 
yalth/rion "harp" or "psalter," its primary reference was to 
instrumental in distinction from vocal activity, in others words, to 
playing rather than to singing. That it still had this instrumental 
sense in our period is suggested by the fact that in several references 
it stands in parallel to musical instruments (Iob 21.12, 30.31, Ioud 
16.1) and it furthermore is regularly used to translate Hebrew 
instrumental terms, for example in Iob bgw(, a flute of some 
description. The phrase yalmo\s o)rga/nwn ("plucking of instruments") 
in contrast to h(xos w/dw~n ("sound of songs") in Am 5.23 gives further 
confirmation (see Muraoka sub yalmos). NETS uses a transcription of the 
Greek with initial capital in agreement with NRSV, though not with the 
suggestion that its sense in the Greek Psalter fully equates with its 
use in modern English.

On Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 03:52 PM, Doug Hoxworth wrote:

> yeah that's what i was thinking as i've been following this thread. 
> the terms themselves do not appear to have anything to say about 
> whether or not it is acapella or with instrumentation. so to argue 
> either inclusion or exclusion of instrumental accompaniment based upon 
> the word alone is to commit the etymological fallacy or something. it 
> seems to me that this is an issue that can only be decided upon by the 
> context that the words are used in and not by the words themselves.
>
> as to whether they are synonymns or not, perhaps they can be used as 
> synonymns in some contexts, but as Eph 5 seems to show there is some 
> distinction (i.e., they are not synonymns here). and again, i think it 
> is a fallacy to read into either of the terms that one is with 
> instruments and one is not. this is something that it seems can only 
> be supplied by context and not the mere appearance of the word.
>
> On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 16:26:00 -0300
>  "Brent Hudson" <brent at riveroflifembchurch.com> wrote:
>> I guess my point would be that that neither ShYR or ADW have anything 
>> to say about whether the 'singing' is acapella or with 
>> instrumentation -- just like the English "sing" does not have that 
>> semantic information encoded within it.  It may always refer to the 
>> 'voice' but that's all.  I can't 'sing' a guitar or 'sing' a beat 
>> (cf., ADW) but that doesn't mean that some instrument is not 
>> accompanying my singing (so Ex 15.21).
>> In short, I don't think either YALLW and ADW tell us whether there is 
>> instrumental accompaniment or not.  ADW in the LXX may refer to 
>> 'singing' and not 'playing' but it says nothing about whether someone 
>> is 'playing' with the 'singing' nor does it imply that there is no 
>> "playing" with the "singing".  I don't think that information is 
>> encoded in the term.
>>
>> Thoughts??
>>
>> Brent Hudson
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—
Albert Pietersma
Professor of Septuagint and Hellenistic Greek
Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto
Home: 21 Cross Street,
Weston ON Canada M9N 2B8
Email: albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Homepage: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~pietersm




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